XIV

Early in the morning Tab paid a fruitless visit to Stone Cottage. The woman who acted as caretaker told him that the young lady had returned to town, and it was at the Central Hotel that he saw her.

Never had he approached an enquiry, professional or otherwise, with such reluctance. On most matters Tab had very definite views. His mentality was such that he never hesitated to form a judgment, or wavered in his convictions. That type of mind cannot understand in others the vacillating hesitancy, which so often distinguishes them in their judgment of people and things. And yet, strive as he did, he could not reduce to a formula, his own chaotic feelings in relation to Ursula Ardfern. One thing he knew. It was no vicarious interest he was showing⁠—he did not even in his own mind regard himself as standing for Rex Lander.

Tab thought best with a pen in his hand, yet when in cold blood he endeavoured to reduce to writing the exact state of his mind in relation to Ursula Ardfern, the white sheet of paper remained white to the end.

The moment he entered her sitting-room, Tab felt that Ursula knew the object of his visit.

“You want to see me very badly, don’t you?” she said, without preliminary, and he nodded.

“What is it?”

Unless he was dreaming, her voice held a subtle caress, and yet that was a ridiculous exaggeration: perhaps “kindness” were a better word.

“Somebody went into Mayfield last night, accompanied by a Chinaman, and they got away just before the police arrived,” said Tab awkwardly, “and that isn’t all; that same somebody has been in the habit of visiting Trasmere between eleven at night and two in the morning, and this practice has been going on for a considerable time.”

She nodded.

“I told you I did not know Mr. Trasmere,” she said quietly. “It is the only lie I have told you. I knew Mr. Trasmere very well, but there were reasons why it would have been fatal for me to have admitted my friendship with him. No, not one lie⁠—two.” She held up her fingers to emphasize her words.

“The other was about the lost jewel-case,” said Tab huskily.

“Yes,” she replied.

“You didn’t lose it at all.”

She shook her head.

“No, I didn’t lose it at all; I knew where it was all the time, but I was⁠—panic stricken, and had to make a decision on the spur of the moment. I do not regret it.”

There was a pause.

“Do the police know?” she asked.

“About you? No. I think they might find out⁠—not from me.”

“Sit down.” She was very calm. He thought she was going to explain, and was quite satisfied that the explanation was a very simple one, but she had no such intention, as her first words told him.

“I can’t tell you now the why of everything. I am too⁠—what is the word? Too tense. I am not so sure that that is the word, either, but my defences are in being. I dare not relax one of them, or the whole would go. Of course, I knew nothing of the murder⁠—you never dreamt I did?”

He shook his head.

“I did not know until Sunday morning, when I was driving out to Stone Cottage,” she said. “It was only by accident that I bought a paper in the street, and then I made my decision. I went straight to the police station with my story of the lost jewel-case. I knew it was in the vault and I had to find some explanation.”

“How did it come to be in the vault?” Tab knew that the question was futile before it was half out.

“That is part of the other story,” she smiled faintly. “Do you believe me?”

He looked up at her quickly, and their eyes met.

“Does it matter whether I believe or not?” he asked quietly.

“It matters a great deal to me,” she said in the same tone.

It was his gaze that fell first.

Then in a different and more cheery voice, she went on:

“You have to help me, Mr. Tab. Not in the matter we have been discussing⁠—I don’t mean that.”

“I’ll help you in that,” said Tab.

“I think you will,” she answered quickly, “but for the moment, ungracious as it may sound, I do not need help. The other matter is more personal. Do you remember telling me about your friend?”

“Rex?” he asked in surprise.

She nodded.

“He went to Naples, didn’t he? I had a letter from him written on board.”

Tab smiled.

“Poor old Rex. What did he want, your photograph?”

“More than that,” she said quietly. “You won’t think I am horrible if I betray his confidence, but I must, if you are to help me. Mr. Lander has done me the honour of asking me to marry him.”

Tab looked at her open-mouthed.

“Rex?” he said incredulously.

She nodded.

“I won’t show you the letter, it would hardly be fair; but he has asked me to give my answer in the agony column of the Megaphone. He says that he has an agent in London who will send it by wireless, and I was wondering⁠—” she hesitated.

“If I were the agent?” said Tab, “No, I know nothing whatever about this.”

She drew a sigh.

“I’m glad,” she said inconsequently. “I mean, I’m glad that you won’t be hurt even indirectly.”

“Do you intend putting in the advertisement?”

“I have already sent it to the paper,” she said. “Here is a copy.” She went to her writing-table and brought back a slip of paper and Tab read:

“Rex: What you ask is quite impossible. I shall never make any other reply.

“One does get that kind of letters,” she said, “and as a rule they are not worth while answering. Had I not known he was a friend of yours, I don’t think I should have taken the trouble⁠—yes I would,” she nodded slowly. “Mr. Trasmere’s nephew has certain claims to refusal.”

“Poor old Rex,” said Tab softly. “I had a wireless from him this morning saying that he was enjoying the voyage.”

He took up his hat.

“As regards the other matter, Miss Ardfern,” he said, “you must tell me in your own time, if you wish to tell me at all. But you must understand that there is a very big chance that the police will trace you, in which case I may be of assistance. As matters stand, I am just a sympathetic observer.”

He held out his hand with a smile and she took it and held it in both of hers.

“For twelve years I have been living in a nightmare,” she said, “a nightmare which my own vanity created. I think I am awake now, and when the police trace me⁠—and I am so certain they will trace me that I have left the stage⁠—”

“Was that the reason?” he exclaimed in surprise.

“That is one of the two reasons,” she said. “When they trace me, I think I shall be glad. There is still something of the old Eve in me,” she smiled a little sadly, “to make exposure a painful possibility.”

One last question he asked as he stood at the door.

“What was in the box? The box that looked like a brick and was hidden in the fireplace?”

“Papers,” she replied. “I only know they were papers written in Chinese. I do not know what they were about yet.”

“Had they⁠—could they possibly supply a clue to the murderer?”

She shook her head and he was satisfied.

He smiled at her and with no other word, went out. All doubts that he had had as to his feeling toward her were now set at rest. He loved this slim girl with the madonna-like face, whose moods changed as swiftly as April light. He did not think of Rex, or the heartache which her message would bring, until later.

There was no very satisfactory portrait of Wellington Brown in existence. On the ship which brought him from China, a fellow passenger had taken a snapshot of a group in which Mr. Brown’s face, slightly out of focus, loomed foggily. With this to work on, and with the assistance of Tab, something like a near-portrait was constructed and circulated by the police. Every newspaper carried the portrait, every amateur detective in the country was looking for the man with the beard, whose gloves had been found outside the death chamber of Jesse Trasmere.

Less fortunate was the lot of Mr. Walter Felling, alias Walters. He had been in prison, and his portraits, full face and profile, were available for immediate distribution. He watched the hunt from one of those densely crowded burrows where humanity swelters and festers on the hot days and nights. In the top room of a crowded tenement, he grew more and more gaunt as the days went by, for the fear of death was in his heart.

Despite the efficient portraiture it is doubtful whether he would have been recognized by the most lynx-eyed policeman, for his beard had reached a considerable length and suspense and terror had wasted his plump cheeks into hollows and cavities that had changed the very contours of his face. He knew the law; its fatal readiness to accept the most fragmentary evidence when a man was on trial for murder. His very movement had been an acknowledgment of guilt, would be accepted as such by a judge who would lay out the damning points, against him with a cold and remorseless thoroughness.

Sometimes at night, especially on rainy nights, he would creep out into the streets. Always they seemed to be full of police⁠—he would return in a panic to spend another restless night, when every creak of the stairs, every muffled voice in the rooms below made him jump to the door.

Walters had doubled back to town, the only safe place of refuge. In the country he would have been a marked man and his liberty of short duration. Avoiding the districts which knew him well, and the friends whose loyalty would not stand the test of a murder charge, he came to the noisy end of Reed Street, posing as an out-of-work engineer.

Here he read every newspaper which he could procure, and in each journal every line that dealt with the murder. What had Wellington Brown to do with it? The appearance of that man in the case bewildered him. He remembered the visitor from China very well. So he, too, was a fugitive. The knowledge brought him a shade of comfort. It was as though a little of the burden of suspicion had been lifted from himself.

One night when he was taking the air, a Chinaman went pad-padding past him and he recognized Yeh Ling. The proprietor of the Golden Roof was one of the few Chinamen in town who seldom wore European dress, and Walters knew him. Yeh Ling had come to Mayfield on several occasions. He had worn European dress then and had excited no surprise, for Mr. Trasmere’s association with the Far East was well known. Yeh Ling must have seen him, for he had passed at a moment when the light of a street lamp fell upon Walters’ face. But he made no sign of recognition and the fugitive hoped that Yeh Ling had been absorbed in his thoughts. Nevertheless, he hurried home again to sit in his darkened room and start painfully at every sound.

Had he known that Yeh Ling had both seen and identified him, he would not have slept at all that night. The Chinaman pursued his course to the unsavoury end of Reed Street; children who saw him screamed derisively; a frowsy old woman standing in a doorway yelled a crude witticism, but Yeh Ling passed on unmoved. Turning sharply into a narrow alleyway, he stopped before a darkened shop and tapped upon a side door. It was opened at once and he passed into a thick and pungent darkness. A voice hissed a question and he answered in the same dialect. Then, without guide, he made his way up the shaky stairs to a back room.

It was illuminated by the light of four candles. The walls were covered by a cheap paper, its crude design mellowed by age, and the only furniture in the room was a broad divan on which sat a compatriot, a wizened old Chinaman who was engaged in carving a half-shaped block of ivory which he held between his knees.

They greeted one another soberly and the old man uttered a mechanical politeness.

“Yo Len Fo,” said Yeh Ling, “is the man well?”

Yo Len Fo shook his head affirmatively.

“He is well, excellency,” he said. “He has been sleeping all the afternoon and he has just taken three pipes. He has also drunk the whiskey you sent.”

“I will see him,” said Yeh Ling and dropped some money upon the divan.

The old man picked this up, uncurled himself and putting down his ivory carefully, led the way up another flight of stairs. A small oil lamp burnt on the bare mantelpiece of the room into which Yeh Ling walked. On a discoloured mattress lay a man. He wore only shirt and trousers and his feet were bare. By the side of the mattress was a tray on which rested a pipe, a half-emptied glass and a watch.

Mr. Wellington Brown looked up at the visitor, his glazed eyes showing the faintest light of interest.

“ ’Lo, Yeh Ling⁠—come to smoke?”

His language was a queer mixture of Cantonese and English, and it was in the former tongue that Yeh Ling replied.

“I do not smoke, Hsien,” he said and the man chuckled.

“Hsien?⁠—‘The Unemployed One,’ eh⁠—funny how names stick⁠—wasser time?”

“It is late,” said Yeh Ling, and the head of the man drooped.

“See ol’ Jesse tomorrow⁠—” he said drowsily, “got⁠—lot of business⁠—”

Yeh Ling stooped and his slim fingers encircled the man’s wrist. The pulse was weak but regular.

“It is good,” he said, turning to the old carver of ivory. “Every morning there must be air in this room. No other smoker must come, you understand, Yo Len Fo? He must be kept here.”

“This morning he wanted to go out,” said the keeper of the establishment.

“He will stay for a long time. I know him. When he was on the Amur River, he did not leave his house for three months. Let there be one pipe always ready. Obey.”

He went softly down the stairs and into the night.

Only once did he glance back as he made his unhurried way to the side door of the Golden Roof. But that glance was sufficient. The man he had seen loafing at the entrance of the alleyway was watching him. He saw him now walking on the other side of the road, a dim, secretive figure. Yeh Ling slipped into his private door, bent down and raised the flap of a letter-slot. The man had come to a halt on the other side of the road. The reflected light from the blazing signs on the main street illuminated his back, but his face was in shadow.

“It is not a policeman,” said Yeh Ling softly and then as the man strolled back into the darkness, he called his stunted servant.

“Follow that man who wears a cap. You will see him on the other side of the road, he is walking toward the houses of the noisy women.”

A quarter of an hour later the stunted man came back with a story of failure and Yeh Ling was not surprised. But the watcher was neither policeman nor reporter, of this he was sure.